Prophecy 1: COB
by Luvingtheshadowhunters
Summary: The TMI characters get a package. They open it to find books based on their lives. They decide to read them. How will this affect how they handle different situations? Series starting with City of Bones.


**DISCLAIMER: Don't own TMI. Cassandra Clare does. **

The Institute's door bell rings. Jace stops mid punch, grabbing a towel and shirt and jogging to the front door. He pulls on his shirt and opens the door. Was Maryse expecting someone? But no one was there, only a box. Jace picks it up, his eye brows furrowing. Why would someone drop a box on their door step and run? It couldn't be a mundane, they wouldn't even be able to see the Institute. It was addressed to the 'residents of the New York Institute.'

Jace takes it to the kitchen table, setting it down and looking it over. Was it a prank? "What's that?" Isabelle asks, flipping whatever catastrophe she was cooking up in that pan. "I don't know," Jace shrugs. "Someone just left it on the door step." "Was it a mistake?" He shakes his head, "It says it's to us. And.." No return address could be found anywhere on the box, but carved on the side were to beautiful Cs. What did it mean? Why didn't they want us to know who they were?

"Avenge my death if this is a bomb," before Isabelle can stop him, Jace rips open the box. "Jace!" Isabelle says, exasperated at his carelessness. Jace grins, "Not a bomb just-" He looks in the box. "Books," He pulls out the one on top, showing it to her. "That kinda looks like-" "My chest?" Jace interrupts, pulling out the next one. "Clary's chest," he confirms. "You would know," Isabelle teases. Jace rolls his eyes. "Why did we get a bunch of books with our chest on them?" Isabelle comes over, looking at them. "These three have your faces on them to. Clary's. And yours. And a guy with white hair.. Valentine?" "No.. to young," he sighs. "Well what are our bodies doing on these books?" Isabelle shrugs.

"What are you yelling about?" Clary asks, coming into the room looking tired. She'd been taking a nap in a room, and was awoken by the door bell. "And why do you have a box of books?" As she comes closer, she becomes more confused. "With my face on them..." "We don't know," Jace sighs. He turns over the book, reading the back. "When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray," he begins. "Heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder—much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It's hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else- Told you so" Jace smirks. Clary rolls her eyes. "and when there is nothing—not even a smear of blood—to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?

This is Clary's first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It's also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk.-" Jace raises an eyebrow at that but keeps reading. "Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace's world with a vengeance, when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know."

"So... it's a book about me?" Clary asks confused. "Correction," Jace sets the book down. "Its a book about all of us. Apparently starting when we met you." Clary looks from her brother to the books uneasily. "Should we read them." Jace looks them over, and nods. "Why not? It couldn't hurt anything I don't think. But maybe we should get everyone here and read them together." Isabelle nods. "Except Mom and Dad, they'll probably wanna take em' straight to the Clave. Just... lets leave adults and children out of this." So Jace gets Alec, Clary gets Simon, and Isabelle opens the door to the Sanctuary so Simon can come in.

Once every ones in there, the box of books in front of them, Jace picks up the first book. "Guess I'll read first," He announces and everyone nods. "Part one Dark Descent. It starts with a quote. _I sung of Chaos and eternal Night, __Taught__by the heav—nly Muse to venture down The dark descent, and up to reascend … __—__John Milton, Paradise Lost._ "Well.." Alec raises an eyebrow. "That's cheerful." Jace nods, "Very. Okay Chaper one... Pandemonium. Well I guess we know where this starts." He clears his throat.

"_"__You've got to be kidding me," The Bouncer said, folding his arms across his massive chest. He stared down at the boy in the red zip-up jacket and shook his shaved head. "You can't bring that thing in here."_

_The fifty or so teenagers in line outside the Pandemonium Club leaned forward to eavesdrop. It was a long wait to get into the all-ages club, especially on a Sunday, and not much generally happened in line. The bouncers were fierce and would come down instantly on anyone who looked like they were going to start trouble. Fifteen-year-old Clary Fray,-_ That's out girl," Jace shoves Clary playfully and she rolls her eyes. _"standing in line with her best friend, Simon, leaned forward along with everyone else, hoping for some excitement._

"_Aw, come on." The kid hoisted the thing up over his head. It looked like a wooden beam, pointed at one end. "It's part of my costume."_

_The bouncer raised an eyebrow. "Which is what?"_

_The boy grinned. He was normal-enough-looking, Clary thought, for Pandemonium. He had electric-blue dyed hair that stuck up around his head like the tendrils of a startled octopus, but no elaborate facial tattoos or big metal bars through his ears or lips. "I'm a vampire hunter." He pushed down on the wooden thing. It bent as easily as a blade of grass bending sideways. "It's fake. Foam rubber. See?-" _"Wait a second," Isabelle says. "You say this thing looked like a wooden beam... and the Bouncer didn't even question when it bent like rubber?" She asks with disbelief. Clary shrugs, "I don't know.. maybe it glamored his mind to or something." Isabelle shrugs, motioning for Jace to continue.

"_The boy's wide eyes were way too bright a green, Clary noticed: the color of antifreeze, spring grass-" _"You do know that's two different shades of green, right?" Simon asks Clary raising his eyebrows. "Look mundane, I'm reading. So shut up," Jace says, squinting his eyes at Simon. "Jace be nice," Isabelle sighs. "Not a mundane," Simon mutters. "_Colored contact lenses, probably. The bouncer shrugged, abruptly bored. "Whatever. Go on in."_

_The boy slid past him, quick as an eel. Clary liked the lilt to his shoulders, the way he tossed his hair as he went. There was a word for him that her mother would have used—insouciant. _"I knew you had a crush on him!" Simon looks at Clary accusingly. She shrugs.

"_You thought he was cute," said Simon, sounding resigned. "Didn't you?"_

_Clary dug her elbow into his ribs, but didn't answer._

_Inside, the club was full of dry-ice smoke. Colored lights played over the dance floor, turning it into a multicolored fairyland of blues and acid greens, hot pinks and golds._

_The boy in the red jacket stroked the long razor-sharp blade in his hands, an idle smile playing over his lips. It had been so easy—a little bit of a glamour on the blade, to make it look harmless. Another glamour on his eyes, and the moment the bouncer had looked straight at him, he was in." _"See," Clary smiles at being right._ "Of course, he could probably have gotten by without all that trouble, but it was part of the fun—fooling the mundies, doing it all out in the open right in front of them, getting off on the blank looks on their sheeplike faces._

_Not that the humans didn't have their uses. The boy's green eyes scanned the dance floor, where slender limbs clad in scraps of silk and black leather appeared and disappeared inside the revolving columns of smoke as the mundies danced. Girls tossed their long hair, boys swung their leather-clad hips, and bare skin glittered with sweat. Vitality just poured off them, waves of energy that filled him with a drunken dizziness. His lip curled. They didn't know how lucky they were. They didn't know what it was like to eke out life in a dead world, where the sun hung limp in the sky like a burned cinder. Their lives burned as brightly as candle flames—and were as easy to snuff out._

_His hand tightened on the blade he carried, and he had begun to step out onto the dance floor, when a girl broke away from the mass of dancers and began walking toward him. He stared at her. She was beautiful, for a human—long hair nearly the precise color of black ink, charcoaled eyes. Floor-length white gown, the kind women used to wear when this world was younger." _"That's me!" Isabelle says, excitedly._ "Lace sleeves belled out around her slim arms. Around her neck was a thick silver chain, on which hung a dark red pendant the size of a baby's fist. He only had to narrow his eyes to know that it was real—real and precious. His mouth started to water as she neared him. Vital energy pulsed from her like blood from an open wound. She smiled, passing him, beckoning with her eyes. He turned to follow her, tasting the phantom sizzle of her death on his lips._ Isabelle scoffs.

_It was always easy. He could already feel the power of her evaporating life coursing through his veins like fire. Humans were so stupid. They had something so precious, and they barely safeguarded it at all. They threw away their lives for money, for packets of powder, for a stranger's charming smile. The girl was a pale ghost retreating through the colored smoke. She reached the wall and turned, bunching her skirt up in her hands, lifting it as she grinned at him. Under the skirt, she was wearing thigh-high boots._

_He sauntered up to her, his skin prickling with her nearness. Up close she wasn't so perfect:"_ Everyone snickers at that, and Isabelle scowls. "Well he wasn't that cute either." "He was a demon!" Alec says exasperated. "An ugly demon." Clary silently disagrees. He didnt look that bad, not Jace good- She stops her thoughts right there. She wasn't allowed to think about Jace like that anymore. Not now that he was her brother. "_He could see the mascara smudged under her eyes, the sweat sticking her hair to her neck. He could smell her mortality, the sweet rot of corruption. Got you, he thought._

_A cool smile curled her lips. She moved to the side, and he could see that she was leaning against a closed door. NO ADMITTANCE—STORAGE was scrawled across it in red paint. She reached behind her for the knob, turned it, slid inside. He caught a glimpse of stacked boxes, tangled wiring. A storage room. He glanced behind him—no one was looking. So much the better if she wanted privacy._

_He slipped into the room after her, unaware that he was being followed._

"_So," Simon said, "pretty good music, eh?"_

_Clary didn't reply. They were dancing, or what passed for it—a lot of swaying back and forth with occasional lunges toward the floor as if one of them had dropped a contact lens- You were wearing contact lenses?" Jace asks confused. "No.." Clary shakes her head. "I must have meant the people around us."Jace nods. "in a space between a group of teenage boys in metallic corsets, and a young Asian couple who were making out passionately, their colored hair extensions tangled together like vines. A boy with a lip piercing and a teddy bear backpack was handing out free tablets of herbal ecstasy, his parachute pants flapping in the breeze from the wind machine. Clary wasn't paying much attention to their immediate surroundings—her eyes were on the blue-haired boy who'd talked his way into the club. He was prowling through the crowd as if he were looking for something. There was something about the way he moved that reminded her of something …_

"_I, for one," Simon went on, "am enjoying myself immensely."_

_This seemed unlikely. Simon, as always, stuck out at the club like a sore thumb, in jeans and an old T-shirt that said MADE IN BROOKLYN across the front. His freshly scrubbed hair was dark brown instead of green or pink, and his glasses perched crookedly on the end of his nose. He looked less as if he were contemplating the powers of darkness and more as if he were on his way to chess club.-" _Jace burst out laughing. Simon glares at him, "The chess club, really?" Clary shrugs, "It's true, but you look good in it." That shut Jace up. He starts reading again. Weird, Clary thinks.

"_Mmm-hmm." Clary knew perfectly well that he came to Pandemonium with her only because she liked it, that he thought it was boring. She wasn't even sure why it was that she liked it—the clothes, the music, made it like a dream, someone else's life, not her boring real life at all. But she was always too shy to talk to anyone but Simon.- _You think you're shy?" Jace raises an eyebrow. Clary blushes, "Well.." "I just wanted to see you blush," Jace smirks, and Clary glares.

_The blue-haired boy was making his way off the dance floor. He looked a little lost, as if he hadn't found whom he was looking for. Clary wondered what would happen if she went up and introduced herself, offered to show him around." _Jace pauses for a moment, his grip on the book becoming dangerously hard. _"Maybe he'd just stare at her. Or maybe he was shy too. Maybe he'd be grateful and pleased, and try not to show it, the way boys did—but she'd know. Maybe—_

_The blue-haired boy straightened up suddenly, snapping to attention, like a hunting dog on point. Clary followed the line of his gaze, and saw the girl in the white dress._

_Oh, well, Clary thought, trying not to feel like a deflated party balloon. I guess that's that. The girl was gorgeous, the kind of girl Clary would have liked to draw—tall and ribbon-slim, with a long spill of black hair. Even at this distance Clary could see the red pendant around her throat. It pulsed under the lights of the dance floor like a separate, disembodied heart._

"_I feel," Simon went on, "that this evening DJ Bat is doing a singularly exceptional job. Don't you agree?" _Everyone rolls their eyes.

_Clary rolled her eyes and didn't answer; Simon hated trance music. Her attention was on the girl in the white dress. Through the darkness, smoke, and artificial fog, her pale dress shone out like a beacon. No wonder the blue-haired boy was following her as if he were under a spell, too distracted to notice anything else around him—even the two dark shapes hard on his heels, weaving after him through the crowd. _"That's us," Jace grins at Alec.

_Clary slowed her dancing and stared. She could just make out that the shapes were boys, tall and wearing black clothes. She couldn't have said how she knew that they were following the other boy, but she did. She could see it in the way they paced him, their careful watchfulness, the slinking grace of their movements-" _"You just said you -couldn't - say how you knew they were following him," Simon shakes his head. "And then you described exactly how you knew." "Are you going to pick out every gramatical error I think in this book," Clary snaps. Jace smirks._ "A small flower of apprehension began to open inside her chest._

"_Meanwhile," Simon added, "I wanted to tell you that lately I've been cross-dressing. Also, I'm sleeping with your mom. I thought you should know." _"Simon!" Clary looks at him alarmed, while Jace nods his head approvingly. "That should get her attention, good work mundie." Simon didn't bother to correct him.

_The girl had reached the wall, and was opening a door marked NO ADMITTANCE. She beckoned the blue-haired boy after her, and they slipped through the door. It wasn't anything Clary hadn't seen before, a couple sneaking off to the dark corners of the club to make out—but that made it even weirder that they were being followed-" _"How do you know wern't having some four-" "Jace don't even," Isabelle shudders at the thought.

_She raised herself up on tiptoe, trying to see over the crowd. The two guys had stopped at the door and seemed to be conferring with each other. One of them was blond, the other dark-haired. The blond one reached into his jacket and drew out something long and sharp that flashed under the strobing lights. A knife. "Simon!" Clary shouted, and seized his arm._

"_What?" Simon looked alarmed. "I'm not really sleeping with your mom, you know. I was just trying to get your attention. Not that your mom isn't a very attractive woman, for her age." _Clary raises an eyebrow at Simon.

"_Do you see those guys?" She pointed wildly, almost hitting a curvy black girl who was dancing nearby. The girl shot her an evil look. "Sorry—sorry!" Clary turned back to Simon. "Do you see those two guys over there? By that door?"_

_Simon squinted, then shrugged. "I don't see anything."_

"_There are two of them. They were following the guy with the blue hair—"_

"_The one you thought was cute?" _"Really. Your best friend's panicking and you're still worried about who she thinks is cute?" Alec shakes his head.

"_Yes, but that's not the point. The blond one pulled a knife."_

"_Are you sure?" Simon stared harder, shaking his head. "I still don't see anyone."_

"_I'm sure."_

_Suddenly all business, Simon squared his shoulders. "I'll get one of the security guards. You stay here." He strode away, pushing through the crowd."_ "Wow," Isabelle looks at him from beside him. "That.. was actually smart." "I'm gonna take that as a compliment and move on.

_Clary turned just in time to see the blond boy slip through the NO ADMITTANCE door, his friend right on his heels. She looked around; Simon was still trying to shove his way across the dance floor, but he wasn't making much progress. Even if she yelled now, no one would hear her, and by the time Simon got back, something terrible might already have happened. Biting hard on her lower lip, Clary started to wriggle through the crowd._

"_What's your name?"_

_She turned and smiled. What faint light there was in the storage room spilled down through high barred windows smeared with dirt. Piles of electrical cables, along with broken bits of mirrored disco balls and discarded paint cans, littered the floor._

"_Isabelle."_

"_That's a nice name." He walked toward her, stepping carefully among the wires in case any of them were live. In the faint light she looked half-transparent, bleached of color, wrapped in white like an angel. It would be a pleasure to make her fall … "I haven't seen you here before."_

"_You're asking me if I come here often?" She giggled, covering her mouth with her hand. There was some sort of bracelet around her wrist, just under the cuff of her dress—then, as he neared her, he saw that it wasn't a bracelet at all but a pattern inked into her skin, a matrix of swirling lines._

_He froze. "You—"_

_He didn't finish. She moved with lightning swiftness, striking out at him with her open hand, a blow to his chest that would have sent him down gasping if he'd been a human being. He staggered back, and now there was something in her hand, a coiling whip that glinted gold as she brought it down, curling around his ankles, jerking him off his feet. He hit the ground, writhing, the hated metal biting deep into his skin. She laughed, standing over him, and dizzily he thought that he should have known. No human girl would wear a dress like the one Isabelle wore. She'd worn it to cover her skin—all of her skin. _"A modest girl might. Not all of us are skanks," Clary says angrily, the demon's thoughts offending her.

_Isabelle yanked hard on the whip, securing it. Her smile glittered like poisonous water. "He's all yours, boys."_

_A low laugh sounded behind him, and now there were hands on him, hauling him upright, throwing him against one of the concrete pillars. He could feel the damp stone under his back. His hands were pulled behind him, his wrists bound with wire. As he struggled, someone walked around the side of the pillar into his view: a boy, as young as Isabelle and just as pretty. _Pretty," Jace scoffs._ "His tawny eyes glittered like chips of amber. "So," the boy said. "Are there any more with you?"_

_The blue-haired boy could feel blood welling up under the too-tight metal, making his wrists slippery. "Any other what?"_

"_Come on now." The tawny-eyed boy held up his hands, and his dark sleeves slipped down, showing the runes inked all over his wrists, the backs of his hands, his palms. "You know what I am."_

_Far back inside his skull, the shackled boy's second set of teeth began to grind._

"_Shadowhunter," he hissed._

_The other boy grinned all over his face. "Got you," he said._

_Clary pushed the door to the storage room open, and stepped inside. For a moment she thought it was deserted. The only windows were high up and barred; faint street noise came through them, the sound of honking cars and squealing brakes. The room smelled like old paint, and a heavy layer of dust covered the floor, marked by smeared shoe prints. There's no one in here, she realized, looking around in bewilderment. It was cold in the room, despite the August heat outside. Her back was icy with sweat. She took a step forward, tangling her feet in __electrical wires__. She bent down to free her sneaker from the cables—and heard voices. A girl's laugh, a boy __answering__ sharply. When she straightened up, she saw them._

_It was as if they had sprung into existence between one blink of her eyes and __the next__. There was the girl in her long white dress, her black hair hanging down her back like damp seaweed. The two boys were with her—the tall one __with black hair__ like hers, and the smaller, fair one, whose hair gleamed like brass in the dim light coming through the windows high above. The fair boy was standing with his hands in his pockets, facing the punk kid, who was tied to a pillar with what looked like piano wire, his hands stretched behind him, his legs bound at the ankles. His face was pulled tight with pain and fear._

_Heart__ hammering in her chest, Clary ducked behind the nearest concrete pillar and peered around it. She watched as the fair-haired- _you like my hair huh?" Jace grins. Clary blushes. "_boy paced back and forth, his arms now __crossed__ over his chest. "So," he said. "You still haven't told me if there are any other of your kind with you."_

_Your kind? Clary wondered what he was talking about. Maybe she'd stumbled into some kind of gang war._ Not a bad guess. We should have a gang name. Hotstuff and them," Jace suggests.

"_I don't know what you're talking about." The blue-haired boy's tone was pained but surly._

"_He means other demons," said the dark-haired boy, speaking for the first time. "You do know what a demon is, don't you?"_

_The boy tied to the pillar turned his face away, his mouth working._

"_Demons," drawled the blond boy, tracing the word on the air with his finger. "Religiously defined as hell's denizens, the servants of Satan, but understood here, for the purposes of the Clave, to be any malevolent spirit whose origin is outside our own home dimension—"_

"_That's enough, Jace," said the girl._

"_Isabelle's right," agreed the taller boy. "Nobody here needs a lesson in semantics—or demonology."_

_They're crazy, Clary thought. Actually crazy._

_Jace raised his head and smiled. There was something fierce about the gesture, something that reminded Clary of documentaries she'd watched about lions on the Discovery Channel, the way the big cats would raise their heads and sniff the air for prey. "Isabelle and Alec think I talk too much," he said, confidingly. "Do you think I talk too much?" _"Yes," Everyone but Jace says. "I wasn't asking you," Jace glares.

"_The blue-haired boy didn't reply. His mouth was still working. "I could give you information," he said. "I know where Valentine is."_

_Jace glanced back at Alec, who shrugged. "Valentine's in the ground," Jace said. "The thing's just toying with us."_

_Isabelle tossed her hair. "Kill it, Jace," she said. "It's not going to tell us anything."_

_Jace raised his hand, and Clary saw dim light spark off the knife he was holding. It was oddly translucent, the blade clear as crystal, sharp as a shard of glass, the hilt set with red stones._

_The bound boy gasped. "Valentine is back!" he protested, dragging at the bonds that held his hands behind his back. "All the Infernal Worlds know it—I know it—I can tell you where he is—" "_What exactly did he think you were going to do with them after he told you this information?" Simon asked confused. They shrug.

"_Rage flared suddenly in Jace's icy eyes. "By __the Angel__, every time we capture one of you bastards, you claim you know where Valentine is. Well, we know where he is too. He's in hell. And you—" Jace turned the knife in his grasp, the edge sparking like a line of fire. "You can join him there."_

_Clary could take no more. She stepped out from behind the pillar. "Stop!" she cried. "You can't do this." _"Clary," Jace looks up at her, his voice playful but his amber eyes serious. "When you think three murderers are standing in front of you... don't jump out from your hiding place! All you will succeed is getting yourself killed!" "Or.." Simon cuts in. "Find out she's a Shadowhunter and that the obnoxious 'murderer' is her brother." "Don't test your luck," Jace says simply, returning to the book.

_Jace whirled, so startled that the knife flew from his hand and clattered against the concrete floor. Isabelle and Alec turned along with him, wearing identical expressions of astonishment. The blue-haired boy hung in his bonds, stunned and gaping._

_It was Alec who spoke first. "What's this?" he demanded, looking from Clary to his companions, as if they might know what she was doing there. _Clary suddenly burst out laughing. Now that she wasn't there, thinking they were murderers, it was pretty funny. They give here weird looks, "What did you even mean?" she grins at Alec. Alec grins back, shrugging. "I don't know. I guess I could've phrased it better."

"_It's a girl," Jace said, recovering his composure. "Surely you've seen girls before, Alec. Your sister Isabelle is one." He took a step closer to Clary, squinting as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. "A mundie girl," he said, half to himself. "And she can see us."_

"_Of course I can see you," Clary said. "I'm not blind, you know."_

"_Oh, but you are," said Jace, bending to pick up his knife. "You just don't know it." He straightened up. "You'd better get out of here, if you know what's good for you."_

"_I'm not going anywhere," Clary said. "If I do, you'll kill him." She pointed at the boy with the blue hair._

"_That's true," admitted Jace, twirling the knife between his fingers. "What do you care if I kill him or not?"_

"_Be-because—" Clary spluttered. "You can't just go around killing people."_

"_You're right," said Jace. "You can't go around killing people." He pointed at the boy with blue hair, whose eyes were slitted. Clary wondered if he'd fainted. "That's not a person, little girl. It may look like a person and talk like a person and maybe even bleed like a person. But it's a monster." _"Do you even know how crazy you sounded" Clary asks.

"_Jace," said Isabelle warningly. "That's enough."_

"_You're crazy," Clary said, backing away from him. "I've called the police, you know. They'll be here any second."_

"_She's lying," said Alec, but there was doubt on his face. "Jace, do you—"_

_He never got to finish his sentence. At that moment the blue-haired boy, with a high, yowling cry, tore free of the restraints binding him to the pillar, and flung himself on Jace. _Clary gasp by accident, and Jace raises an eyebrow at her.

_They fell to the ground and rolled together, the blue-haired boy tearing at Jace with hands that glittered as if tipped with metal. Clary backed up, wanting to run, but her feet __caught on__ a loop of wiring and she went down, knocking the breath out of her chest. She could hear Isabelle shrieking. Rolling over, Clary saw the blue-haired boy sitting on Jace's chest. Blood gleamed at the tips of his razorlike claws._

_Isabelle and Alec were running toward them, Isabelle brandishing the whip in her hand. The blue-haired boy slashed at Jace with claws __extended__. Jace threw an arm up to protect himself, and the claws raked it, splattering blood. The blue-haired boy lunged again—and Isabelle's whip came down across his back. He shrieked and fell to the side._

_Swift as a flick of Isabelle's whip, Jace rolled over. There was a blade gleaming in his hand. He sank the knife into the blue-haired boy's chest. Blackish liquid exploded around the hilt. The boy arched off the floor, gurgling and twisting. With a grimace Jace stood up. His __black shirt__ was blacker now in some places, wet with blood. He looked down at the twitching form at his feet, reached down, and yanked out the knife. The hilt was slick with black fluid._

_The blue-haired boy's eyes flickered open. His eyes, fixed on Jace, seemed to burn. Between his teeth, he hissed, "So be it. The Forsaken will take you all." _"Now that we know Valentine is back... what do you think that means?" Alec asks thinking. "Is he trying to make an army of Forsaken?" "Maybe..." Clary allows. "But what would he need to raise Raziel for if that's what he wants to do? He already has the Mortal cup." Alec shrugs.

_Jace seemed to snarl. The boy's eyes rolled back. His body began to jerk and twitch as he crumpled, folding in on himself, growing smaller and smaller until he vanished entirely._

_Clary scrambled to her feet, kicking free of the electrical wiring. She began to back away. None of them were paying attention to her. Alec had reached Jace and was holding his arm, __pulling__ at the sleeve, probably trying to get a __good look__at the wound. Clary turned to run—and found her way blocked by Isabelle, whip in hand. The gold length of it was stained with dark fluid. She flicked it toward Clary, and the end wrapped itself around her wrist and jerked tight. Clary gasped with pain and surprise. "_Im sorry about that," Isabelle apoligizes. "I was just mad." Clary nods, "It's fine."

"_Stupid little mundie," Isabelle said between her teeth. "You could have gotten Jace killed."_

"_He's crazy," Clary said, trying to pull her wrist back. The whip bit deeper into her skin. "You're all crazy. What do you think you are, vigilante killers? The police—"_

"_The police aren't usually interested unless you can produce a body," said Jace. Cradling his arm, he picked his way across the cable-strewn floor toward Clary. Alec followed behind him, face screwed into a scowl._

_Clary glanced at the spot where the boy had disappeared from, and said nothing. There wasn't even a smear of blood there—nothing to show that the boy had ever existed._

"_They return to their home dimensions when they die," said Jace. "In case you were wondering." _"Jace!" Clary says exasperated. "I had -no- idea what you were talking about. You were just talking yourself into a deeper hole in my mind."

"_Jace," Alec hissed. "Be careful."_

_Jace drew his arm away. A ghoulish freckling of blood marked his face. He still reminded her of a lion, with his wide-spaced, light-colored eyes, and that tawny gold hair. "She can see us, Alec," he said. "She already knows too much."_

"_So what do you want me to do with her?" Isabelle demanded._

"_Let her go," Jace said quietly. Isabelle shot him a surprised, almost angry look, but didn't argue. _"What were you going to do with me?" Clary asks Isabelle nervously. She didnt answer._ The whip slithered away, freeing Clary's arm. She rubbed her sore wrist and wondered how the hell she was going to get out of there._

"_Maybe we should bring her back with us," Alec said. "I bet Hodge would like to talk to her."_

"_No way are we bringing her to the Institute," said Isabelle. "She's a mundie."_

"_Or is she?" said Jace softly. His quiet tone was worse than Isabelle's snapping or Alec's anger. "Have you had dealings with demons, little girl? Walked with warlocks, talked with the Night Children? Have you—" _"Clary's right. You sound insane," Alec laughs.

"_My name is not 'little girl,'" Clary interrupted. "And I have no idea what you're talking about." Don't you? said a voice in the back of her head. You saw that boy vanish into thin air. Jace isn't crazy—you just wish he was. "I don't believe in—in demons, or whatever you—"_

"_Clary?" It was Simon's voice. She whirled around. He was standing by the storage room door. One of the burly bouncers who'd been stamping hands at the front door was next to him. "Are you okay?" He peered at her through the gloom. "Why are you in here by yourself? What happened to the guys—you know, the ones with the knives?" _Simon grimaces, "I sound like an idiot." "Y-" Jace starts. "Dont even," Clary shakes her head.

_Clary stared at him, then looked behind her, where Jace, Isabelle, and Alec stood, Jace still in his bloody shirt with the knife in his hand. He grinned at her and dropped a half-apologetic, half-mocking shrug. Clearly he wasn't surprised that neither Simon nor the bouncer could see them._

_Somehow neither was Clary. Slowly she turned back to Simon, knowing how she must look to him, standing alone in a damp storage room, her feet tangled in bright plastic wiring cables. "I thought they went in here," she said lamely. "But I guess they didn't. I'm sorry." She glanced from Simon, whose expression was changing from worried to embarrassed, to the bouncer, who just looked annoyed. "It was a mistake."_

_Behind her, Isabelle giggled._

"_I don't believe it," Simon said stubbornly as Clary, standing at the curb, tried desperately to hail a cab. Street cleaners had come down Orchard while they were inside the club, and the street was glossed black with oily water._

"_I know," she agreed. "You'd think there'd be some cabs. Where is everyone going at midnight on a Sunday?" She turned back to him, shrugging. "You think we'd have better luck on Houston?" _"Did you really think he was talking about the cabs?" Jace asks. "No," she says defensively. "I was just trying to change the subject.."

"_Not the cabs," Simon said. "You—I don't believe you. I don't believe those guys with the knives just disappeared." _"You watch to many movies," Clary shakes her head. "You sound like they told me to meet up with them at midnight and not tell anyone they were there." "Well it kinda looked like that..." "That's the first explanation you come up with though.." "I could of just supposed you were crazy," Simon shoots back.

_Clary sighed. "Maybe there weren't any guys with knives, Simon. Maybe I just imagined the whole thing."_

"_No way." Simon raised his hand over his head, but the oncoming taxis whizzed by him, spraying dirty water. "I saw your face when I came into that storage room. You looked seriously freaked out, like you'd seen a ghost."_

_Clary thought of Jace with his lion-cat eyes. She glanced down at her wrist, braceleted by a thin red line where Isabelle's whip had curled. No, not a ghost, she thought. Something even weirder than that._

"_It was just a mistake," she said wearily. She wondered why she wasn't telling him the truth. Except, of course, that he'd think she was crazy. And there was something about what had happened—something about the black blood bubbling up around Jace's knife, something about his voice when he'd said Have you talked with the Night Children? that she wanted to keep to herself. _

"_Well, it was a hell of an embarrassing mistake," Simon said. He glanced back at the club, where a thin line still snaked out the door and halfway down the block. "I doubt they'll ever let us back into Pandemonium."_

"_What do you care? You hate Pandemonium." Clary raised her hand again as a yellow shape sped toward them through the fog. This time, though, the taxi screeched to a halt at their corner, the driver laying into his horn as if he needed to get their attention._

"_Finally we get lucky." Simon yanked the taxi door open and slid onto the plastic-covered backseat. Clary followed, inhaling the familiar New York cab smell of old cigarette smoke, leather, and hair spray. "We're going to Brooklyn," Simon said to the cabbie, and then he turned to Clary. "Look, you know you can tell me anything, right?"_

_Clary hesitated a moment, then nodded. "Sure, Simon," she said. "I know I can." _Simon looks hurt beside Clary. She takes his hand, "Sorry." Jace stiffens, but doesnt say anything.

_She slammed the cab door shut behind her, and the taxi took off into the night._

**A/N: Was it any good? Review and tell me. Seriously if you want me to continue you really should review otherwise I honestly probably wont. Reviews are pretty much the only thing that motivates me to keep going. Once I start I like it, but reviews are what make me sit down. ****_A_**


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